The Story Behind ‘Angel Applicant,’ the Stunning Doc That Brought SXSW to Tears
Ken August Meyer doesn't like the way he looks. In 2000, not long after he graduated from art school, Meyer was diagnosed with a rare, incurable autoimmune disease called scleroderma that hardened his skin, inflamed his joints, and posed threats to his organs.
Strangers once mistook him for a mannequin because his arms resemble those of a plastic doll. At one of his lowest moments, he had to step away from his advertising job to do a year’s worth of chemotherapy treatments. It was then that he made a courageous choice: Rather than distract himself from reality, he would make a documentary about it.
But not just any documentary. Meyer had long been enchanted by the work of Paul Klee, an abstract artist who fled Nazi Germany when Hitler labeled him a degenerate in the 1930s. Klee, too, suffered from scleroderma. While living in isolation in Switzerland, he made his shifting appearance the subject of many paintings. With that historical kinship in mind, Meyer came up with the idea for Angel Applicant, a stirring film that’s part art survey and part memoir. As both subject and director, he embarked on a profound quest to make sense of the turbulence he’s felt over the past 23 years.